Teen birth rates on the decline

Rates in rural counties still higher than urban peers

8:59 PM,
Mar. 3, 2013

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Fewer Ohio teenagers gave birth in 2012 than in the past 20 years, largely because of increased use of birth control from abstinence to condoms.

Last year, 11,117 babies were born to women younger than 19 - a rate of 14.7 births per 1,000 women that age, according to Ohio Department of Health statistics. That might seem like a lot of children raising children, but it's nearly half the 21,967 babies born to teen moms in 1992.

"(It) is the magic formula of less sex and more contraception," said Bill Albert, chief program officer with the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy. ...